coach-and-four
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of coach-and-four
First recorded in 1880–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is a social engineering outfit masquerading as a tech firm, and it appears to regard social responsibility as an outdated piece of apparatus, a wooden coach-and-four in an age of tarmac.
From The Guardian • Mar. 3, 2017
"We need a coach-and-four," groaned a U.S. player.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Compared with Milan's La Scala or West Berlin's opera, whose repertories are laced with contemporary works, the Met, as one critic puts it, "remains a coach-and-four in a jet age."
From Time Magazine Archive
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For $150, travelers can take a three-day tour in a 17-seater coach-and-four; the package includes meals and rooms at medieval inns along the way.
From Time Magazine Archive
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It seemed to us to be framed so that a coach-and-four could be driven through every one of its clauses.
From A Prisoner in Turkey by Still, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.